Page 10 of Fragile Wicked Things
The remainingtwo years at Lowood were spent alone—a time filled with chores, schoolwork and volunteering at the hospital. Dr. Bates recommended me, and not once did he reprimand me, call me a liar or punish me in front of others. Mr. Brocklehurst spent less time at Lowood, proof that sometimes God does answer the prayers of "insufferable young girls." There were days when I would sit in the garden and pretend to have a conversation with Helen, but after a while, Miss Smith became worried, so I stopped.
The nightmares ended after Helen passed away. The creature had tortured me those many years until it got what it wanted: to annihilate me by taking what mattered most. It won. The beast now controlled me, and I swore never to hope for happiness again.
Annihilate—from the Latin word "annihilatus" meaning to be "reduced to nothing." A forceful word, full of strength and destruction. I was nothing.
Oh, what power you hold over me, dark creature. But why did you take my Helen away and not me?Even then, I knew the answer—I feared death more than I feared my terrible life at Lowood, while Helen welcomed it.
"Jane, is all your grief cried away?" said Mrs. Temple.
"It's long gone," I assured her.
After Helen's death, Mrs. Temple worried about me for a long time and kept me busy tidying up her classroom, running errands and helping to organize the next day's lesson. She had me carry science books to Miss Miller's class, who was learning subatomic particles in physics. I half-listened as I piled the books on a shelf, wondering if Helen was made up of tiny dust particles and if she had disintegrated like that dog on Sputnik. I became one particle, barely visible to the human eye.
My invisibility didn't spare me at the hospital, where the nurses were rude, shouting orders and having me do the chores they would rather not do. Many times, I found myself on my hands and knees, wiping vomit or laundering the soiled bed sheets. When a death occurred, the nurses sent me to clean the room. They said I didn't fear death, but that wasn't true. I knew death wouldn't come for me.
I carried clean bed sheets to prepare a room and passed a janitor who squeezed soapy water from a mop into a bucket. He looked up, eyes dark and bored, staring past me. Around his neck, a gold cross swung back and forth as he mopped. I wasn't Catholic, but I wondered if it worked. Did the crucifix keep evil away? Maybe it protected him against the Dark Angel that roamed the corridors.
"Jane, please come see me after your shift." Dr. Bates startled me.
I nodded in his direction and began to worry. Was I not doing a good job? Did one of the nurses complain? Did a patient? Since my time at Lowood neared its end, I had hoped that my volunteer job would turn into a real one. My thoughts raced while my hands worked, automatically tucking the corners over the mattress and folding a blanket, leaving it at the foot of the bed. I looked over my handiwork—everything in its place, tidy. I feared it would be my last day.
Dr. Bates' office was tiny and stark, with a metal desk and disorderly piles of paper. He removed a stack of folders from a chair and motioned for me to sit down. Once I settled in, he said, "Mrs. Temple tells me you're nearing eighteen, and soon you'll be leaving Lowood."
"Yes, doctor. I planned to speak to you about getting a job."
"Excellent. A colleague from back home has a patient, an elderly woman who needs a caregiver beginning next week. It pays $175 a month plus room and board. Does this interest you?"
"I'll be living with her?"
"Yes, but I'm assured that Thornfield Hall is a grand mansion with plenty of space."
"Is it that big house outside of town?"
"No," he said. "Thornfield Hall is in New Orleans, on the outskirts. I'm told it's quiet there. The home belongs to Mr. Edward Rochester; you will care for his grandmother. What should I tell them?"
I had never been to New Orleans or outside Kansas. Reading about exotic lands like India and China and funny-sounding places like Bora Bora, it had never occurred to me that I could one day see the world. The unknown frightened me, but how could I not move forward and welcome the new life being offered?
Mrs. Temple had been my lone solace at Lowood, but she, too, moved on. She met a man who sold insurance for a living and they planned a fall wedding. Happiness had found her again years after the war that made her a widow and left her childless. With her gone, any hope of Lowood being a home would go with her. This left me with an emptiness.
Courage. All I knew existed within the walls of Lowood. But my soul cried out for liberty.
"Tell them I would be happy to accept."
Four
Athick plume of exhaust puffed up from the engine as the train steadily approached the station, and when it arrived with a great roar in all the tumult of the depot, it looked decidedly unglamorous, covered in filth and soot all along its length. I stood on the concrete platform, operating in slow motion, checking my ticket countless times, verifying the date and time, while men, women and children sped past me, a blur of color and a babble of voices. A couple, carrying a large bag between them, crossed my path, bumping me, and the man let out a muffled apology without looking at me.
When I boarded, I flagged down a middle-aged porter, his black beard streaked with grey, as he hurried past me down the narrow corridor. He glanced at my ticket, adjusted his cap, sweat trickling downwards in a crooked path to his left cheek, then pointed to the next car and rushed off. The tiny windows along the corridor were closed, the stifling heat suffocating me. I stopped to lean against one of the windows, undid the top button of my blouse, and let out a breath. Then, I walked unsteadily to the common area of the following car and sat near an open window. A breeze cooled me, the sensation calming, and then I worried about what direction the train would travel. What if going backwards made me sick? As I debated whether to move to the adjacent seat, a family sat beside me, making the decision for me. There were four of them: a little boy, his parents and his grandmother. The mother sat in front of me, picked up her child and placed him on her lap. They smiled, and I acknowledged them with a polite nod, but the young boy stared at me and then spoke to his mother in a foreign language that sounded like German.
The train whistled and jerked, thrusting me forward as it accelerated out of the station. The city stockyards flew by, then the Frye General Store, where I often went to buy items like mending kits, soap, toothpaste and gum for Lowood. White houses with brown crooked fences whipped past: Lord of Mercy Church, where Pastor John presided; the lumber yard, where men were loading up their trucks. Finally, there came unending farmland. We had left Kansas behind. I would never return.
The man near me tore at a bag of peanuts, cracked open the shells and handed the nuts one by one to his son, who ate them, making loud crunching sounds. The boy leaned his head against his mother's chest and stared out the window, his image reflected on the glass, eyes blinking among the backdrop of trees. He, too, became mesmerized by the scenery of farmers’ fields in bucolic settings and red brick schoolhouses swarming with children. We traveled past Brookhaven, Magnolia, Independence, and some small places that could barely be called towns. Hours later, as the boy slept in his mother's arms, we crossed a river. The water made its way to a lake; cars sped past on the overpass to the east, and finally, we came to Lake Pontchartrain along the Gulf Coast. A bridge crossed over it, leading to the city.
New Orleans. My excitement swelled. My heart pounded, and my knuckles whitened from clasping my sweaty hands together. At first, the landscape was littered with a smattering of buildings, then transformed into a dense one of compacted neighborhoods—apartments with clotheslines that hung off balconies, people loitering outside storefronts, and cars that sped past them on the roads. I had heard it described as nothing more than a fishbowl beneath the water level.
The train stopped with a long screech, and I reached for my carryall, the one I had taken to Lowood, my life packed away in a small, ordinary bag with my name and the words "Thornfield Hall" dangling on a card. Strangers hustled and bustled through the station; some looked around as if searching for a loved one, but that loved one wasn't me, and soon they would be hugging lost family members. Others were alone, but, unlike me, they moved with purpose. I stood so perfectly still that I became almost invisible. Where were they all going? Why did I travel so far, thinking I could create a new life for myself? The thought overwhelmed me, my breath shortened, and I plopped down on a wooden bench.
Someone was to fetch me, but I could see no one approaching me. I waited, staring at a mural with four panels, each depicting a different era in the history of New Orleans—men with top hats playing cards, slaves working the fields, a soldier with bayonet in hand, men before a firing squad. On another wall, a poster advertised that a singer named Ella Fitzgerald would play a venue in the French Quarter. Ella. What a beautiful name, not plain sounding at all but ladylike.
